Winning
by MindCanaries5
Summary: After Ash's devastating loss at the Lily of the Valley Conference, Gary comforts him the only way he knows how. Featuring backtalk and bottom Gary. Palletshipping.


**Disclaimer** : Pokemon is property of Nintendo. No infringement was intended and no profit was made.

 **Warnings** : Slash, m/m smut, whatever you wanna call it. Swearing.

* * *

You never thought the night would come when the sound of Gary's shallow breaths would aggravate you, but it was the loudest thing in the room and therefore had to be the reason you couldn't sleep. You'd been laying here for hours dreading the next breath he'd puff out to obliterate your peace of mind. You inhaled them slowly. They wisped down your throat and then stuck halfway down in a tight knot. You tried to swallow them in dulled failure.

All you wanted was silence.

It's all you could remember. How quiet the arena got when the fluorescent gleam of the pokeball vanished and your eyes adjusted to the lack of its glare. The crowd saw it before you did. The spotlight that shone on you delayed your line of sight and you made it out a fraction of a second later. But once you saw it, you understood their silence. The determination in your eyes faltered and flailed in disappointed agony until you had to close them.

Another legendary. It had taken half your team to take out darkrai and when you finally accomplished what no one before you could, your efforts were rewarded with a harsh truth. It didn't matter. None of it had. All of your hard work, the months you spent in Sinnoh strengthening your team in power, and building trust and all of it for nothing.

You had been so certain that this would be your year. Everyone said it. Even the people who normally didn't. Your mom would be proud no matter if you lost in the first round eliminations. Misty and Brock cheered you on until the last second. Even Professor Oak praised the balance in your team with pride in his eyes.

Gary breathed.

You stared at him as if you could will him awake. What was left of your pride wouldn't allow you to do anything more.

You should have known better, really. The trip to his room was a subdued disappointment. Your steps were in time with each other's but each one you took felt heavier. The silence stretched between you until you were sure the physical distance did too and you guys arrived at the hotel without sharing anything but air.

The ache for his hand in yours was almost tangible even if you knew that wasn't logical. Even though you knew he'd berate you for it. You'd learned early on in your time with Gary that both demands and pleas of affection were rejected with a curled lip and teasing.

'Don't be so needy, loser.' You had no problem conjuring up the haughty hues his voice often took on in the rare situations you expressed the itch you often got for his scarce tenderness; the quiet night between you made it easy to hear ringing derogatively around in your head.

And all the more apparent you weren't in the mood for the lighthearted jabs. You weren't feeling very lighthearted at all.

At least when you got to the hotel room, the dingy lighting matched your mood. Gary frequently boasted about his intuition and tonight you wanted to give him a gold star when he immediately slipped into bed and pulled back the covers for you to join him. You plopped into bed with a sigh like you did when you were ten and Mom insisted it was bedtime.

One glance in his direction and you ripped that mental gold star to shreds. Gary was slinking back into his pillow and settling in comfortably on his side of the bed. He offered you a sidelong peek and the barest of smiles.

And that was all.

No reassuring words, no expression of how unfair that match had been and how you'd deserved better, no gentle touches that your internal anguish had been desperately demanding from him for hours. Nothing but his incessant faint breathing that contrasted so hard with the turmoil roiling in your gut.

Finally, you couldn't stand another second of it. You invaded his half of the bed and curled your leg between his.

Consciousness came to him in a few slow blinks. His eyes settled softly down on yours. "Can't sleep?"

You loved how he sounded when he just woke up. Underuse dragged his tenor down into a rough drone, unspeckled by lilts and left raw.

"Not with your snoring."

His nose crinkled. "Bullshit. I don't snore. Snoring is beneath me."

That brought a snort from you. "You're right," you agreed. "It's more like a purr," you insisted matter-of-factly, unable to drip condescension like him. "It's like sleeping with a delcatty."

He didn't go for the bait. Instead he shrugged the shoulder your head wasn't resting on and mimicked your factual tone. "Better than sharing a bed with a snorlax."

"Hey, Snorlax are quietly powerful. They deserve a better rap."

"Maybe," he admitted, weariness starting to creep back into his voice and along with it, its natural derision. "I didn't realize I was dealing with the snorlax cheer squad."

"Well," you said with a short pause, unable to come up with anything worth saying but unwilling to let him get the last word. "Now you know," you finished lamely.

"I _know,_ " he began, shifting onto his side to face you and resting his head on one arm propped up at the elbow, "that you did not wake me up to tell me I sleep like a delcatty."

He gave you a serious look and for a second you thought he was going to ask about your devastating loss today. Instead his eyes trailed down you, his smirk stretching with the implication of his glance. Finally, he reached his hand toward you, curled two fingers under your chin, scratched at it and whispered, shit-eating grin all the while, "Bet I can make you purr."

Damn him. Your cheeks burned. "Not a chance," you squeaked out. "I don't purr," your voice straightened out into a pretty good imitation of his haughtiness and you stuck out your chin. "Purring is beneath me."

His hands swiftly clasped yours above your head and he draped his full weight over you. "Who's beneath who, exactly?" he didn't bother hiding the amusement in his eyes or in his sideways smirk as he looked down his nose at you.

You struggled mildly against his hold, testing it more than anything. His amused stare was daring you to challenge him.

Fine. You needed a win tonight.

You bucked, shifting his weight long enough to roll out from beneath him and ended up kneeling on the other side of the bed before he even knew what happened.

You pounced. You had him on his back, his hands beneath yours, your positions exactly reversed before you answered him. "If my calculations are correct," you loved using the nerd card on him, "I'd have to say that you're definitely beneath me, in every sense of the word."

His brow raised first in surprise and then furrowed in distaste at your sudden upturn, but you shut him up before he could retaliate.

You sucked hard on his bottom lip and then let it slip out with a loud smack **.** He didn't struggle against your hold, he relaxed into the bed and let your lips smash him further down into it.

This was different. Normally the slight time you two had alone together was rushed. There usually wasn't room for much deviation from the norm. Normally, it began with him pinning you down and ended much the same way.

You didn't mind it. Sometimes you felt it stunted exploration, but mostly you were too busy enjoying yourself to complain.

Tonight though you were enjoying the sight of him adjusting to your weight and the rhythm of your kisses. You pulled back to get a good look at him and immediately regretted it.

Maybe you were on top but he still had full advantage. You wanted to tell him he was breathtaking but his ego didn't need any stroking and you could think of a few other things you'd rather focus your time on.

There was one thing in particular that got your mouth watering. It wet your thoughts and your shorts, entertaining it to the point where you couldn't think of anything but.

"Gary," you blurted out, without tact. "Gary I wanna…" you ground into him, trying to make your point physically because words were failing you.

He looked up at you and there was a second you thought he would deny you, but the fear evaporated at the smile that lifted his eyes and he nodded his approval. He spread his legs wider to cement in your heavy lidded skull that he was granting permission for what you thought he was.

Even so it took you a minute to act on his offer. You were caught in his kind stare and how easily he'd submitted.

He must have seen the frustration there. Here was your willing outlet, smiling up at you with all the patience and encouragement he usually held on reserve.

Forget the gold star. You'd build him a galaxy of precious metals.

"What? You waiting on an engraved invitation?"

"That'd be nice," you nipped along his neck. "But I prefer verbal requests."

"Then I'll have to regretfully decline."

"Too bad. Attendance is mandatory," you tightened your hold on his wrists, reminding him it was there. "You're not getting out of this."

You sucked along his jaw.

"Then it better be worth my while." He unveiled his throat with a slow tilt. His eyes closed, he was all bronze and sharp angles.

Gladly. You would gladly spend all night showing him his worth.

You slickened his chest with slow drags of your tongue. His wrists slipped from your grasp as you slid your attention down the whole of him. Splayed before you, arms loosely framed around his face where you'd left them, his lazy smile- he looked sculpted like some ancient golden hero, erected to represent the epitome of satisfaction.

You had every intention of going it slow but then sensation set in and you slid in all at once, pinning him down by his hips when he tried to back.

Realization came slightly later and you glanced down to make sure he was okay. The tail end of a groan rut out through his grit jaw and his brow dipped slightly but other than that, his expression looked as composed as ever.

"Damn, Ash," he breathed, his eyes fluttering open in a slight frown.

You buried your head in his neck and tried to soothe with mild kissing. "Sorry," you mumbled, not in the least.

You stayed still for an eternity. Sound had faded into a hushed wave. It took more focus than you knew you possessed to still the current rolling in between your legs.

Finally, his leg curled around your back in silent encouragement and that's all you needed. Your teeth settled into his neck and your hips smacked against his ass in an upbeat meter that clattered your jaw.

You exhaled, your breath whooshing out in triumphant crescendo. There were few things Gary loved more than the sound of his own voice and finally you understood why. His tenor flew sharp and satisfyingly into your ears.

It was your turn to smirk. "Like that?"

"Yeah, I'll admit," he drawled, a playful gleam flickering in his glance. "This is pretty, uh, _legendary_."

You actually gasped.

"What? Too soon?" He taunted, laughter spilling out over his stretched grin.

Revenge snaked its way into your grasp. You flipped him over and shoved his face into the pillow, stifling his laughs. Those that bounced off slapped your ears and your pride. You used them as fuel to rev into him until the only thing that left his mouth were clipped staccato gasps.

Good.

"Are you sorry?"

"Not as sorry as your match."

You faltered, tempo fluctuating for a split second. "Remember when I beat you?"

"Just the once."

"Nuh uh. There was that race," you reminded him, the memory surging through your confidence and accelerating your pace.

"Oh yeah," he admitted, all breath. "But Ashy-boy," his head dipped and he caught your eye. Your mouth fell open at the intensity glazed there. "This isn't a race," he suggested.

Damn him. It amazed you how he could splatter your pride in one instant and elate it to unparalleled levels in the next, with only a single glance.

You slowed. You wanted to savor this as much as he did. You wanted to savor that look.

Dragging him down by his hip, you draped along his side and settled in. Perched on your elbow, you hung on every inflection engraved on his face.

And he gave you a real show.

Lip biting, groans let loose, little nuanced trembling along his sharp jaw.

His eyes flashed open and met yours in complete surrender. You came hard. Rode out the tide against the slant of his jaw, one arm slung around him in a firm hold.

After the panting died out, he returned to his usual post-fuck distance a few feet away from you and stretched. He crossed his arms and bent one over his chest, tongue gliding out over his bottom lip to test the swelling there.

Satisfied that it would be presentable, he turned to you and let it skim across your own. The gentleness of it soothed. When your stare flicked up to him this time, your heart fluttered disjointedly. His eyes were tinged in rare tenderness.

"You always win where it counts," he said, touching his forehead to yours, giving you a close-up view of the raw sincerity etched there.

And it was true. It wasn't a race. You'd win eventually. Your determination had already won him over; perhaps the most meaningful of victories. No matter if it took eight more years of battling your way against uneven playing fields, you'd already leveled the one between the two of you. You got this.


End file.
